Southampton is an unincorporated community located in
Upper Southampton Township,
Bucks County
Bucks County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 646,538, making it the fourth-most populous county in Pennsylvania. Its county seat is Doylestown. The county is named after the English ...
,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
.
Geography
Southampton is 18 miles north, from the center of Philadelphia. Its
ZIP Code is 18966. Portions of this
ZIP Code can also be addressed as Churchville or Holland.
The town is located in the lower central part of
Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Bucks County is a County (United States), county in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 646,538, making it the List of counties in Pennsylvania, four ...
, and is directly bordered by
Montgomery County to the west. It lies within the Townships of
Upper Southampton and
Northampton
Northampton ( ) is a town and civil parish in Northamptonshire, England. It is the county town of Northamptonshire and the administrative centre of the Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority of West Northamptonshire. The town is sit ...
.
Upper Southampton Township is part of the
Centennial School District, and is served by
William Tennent High School, located in nearby
Warminster
Warminster () is a historic market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in south-west Wiltshire, England, on the western edge of Salisbury Plain. The parish had a population of 18,173 in 2021.
The name ''Warminster'' occurs first i ...
. Northampton Township is part of the
Council Rock School District. Most of Northampton Township is served by
Council Rock High School South, located within Southampton (addressed as Holland), while some students are zoned to
Council Rock High School North in nearby
Newtown Township. Students in both districts may also attend
Middle Bucks Institute of Technology, a part time vocational school in nearby
Jamison.
History
Southampton, Pennsylvania is a namesake of
Southampton
Southampton is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. It is located approximately southwest of London, west of Portsmouth, and southeast of Salisbury. Southampton had a population of 253, ...
,
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
, from where the followers of
William Penn
William Penn ( – ) was an English writer, religious thinker, and influential Quakers, Quaker who founded the Province of Pennsylvania during the British colonization of the Americas, British colonial era. An advocate of democracy and religi ...
set sail to the Province of Pennsylvania. By 1685, Southampton was recognized by the
Provincial Council as a township, and the lands within its borders had been allocated to thirteen original purchasers: John Luff, John Martin, Robert Pressmore, Richard Wood, John Jones, Mark Betres, John Swift, Enoch Flowers, Joseph Jones, Thomas Groom, Robert Marsh, Thomas Hould and John Gilbert, whose tracts were delineated on a ''Map of the Improved Part of the Province of Pennsylvania'', drafted by Thomas Holme, Pennsylvania's Surveyor General.
Southampton's boundaries at that time extended eastward to Bensalem, and it was not until 1929 that the township was divided into "Upper Southampton" and "Lower Southampton". Its immediate bordering towns are now Feasterville, Huntingdon Valley, Warminster, and Churchville.
In order to ensure peaceful coexistence with the Indians residing in this region, Penn purchased the land with
wampum
Wampum is a traditional shell bead of the Eastern Woodlands tribes of Native Americans. It includes white shell beads hand-fashioned from the North Atlantic channeled whelk shell and white and purple beads made from the quahog or Western ...
and other valuable commodities including items of clothing, fish hooks, axes, knives and other useful tools. The area between the Pennypack and Neshaminy Creeks, encompassing Southampton Township, was conveyed by the Lenni-Lenape Chief Tamanend to William Penn by Deed dated June 23, 1683.
Many of the first English settlers were
Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...
s who fled religious persecution, and it was a group of dissident Quakers who joined with members of the
Pennepek Baptist Church (a.k.a. Lower Dublin) to form the
Southampton Baptist Church, which was constituted in 1746. Dutch colonists arrived in Southampton in the 18th century – the Vandikes, Vansandts, Vanartsdalens, Cornells, Krewsons and Hogelands – who migrated south from Long Island, New York and settled in Smoketown, later to be called Churchville after the North and Southampton Reformed Church erected on Bristol Road.
The churchyards adjacent to the Southampton Baptist and North and Southampton Reformed Churches contain graves of patriots who fought in the Revolutionary War.
Farming was the way of life for most Southampton residents throughout the 18th and 19th Centuries, and roads were constructed from farm to mill, to market and to church. Second Street Pike was the thoroughfare used to carry produce by horse and wagon to the markets in Philadelphia. In the mid-19th century the villages of Davisville, Churchville, and Southamptonville (formerly "Fetter's Corner") sprouted at the various crossroads in the township, and Second Street Pike became a toll road.
In 1785 inventor
John Fitch was living in
Warminster
Warminster () is a historic market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in south-west Wiltshire, England, on the western edge of Salisbury Plain. The parish had a population of 18,173 in 2021.
The name ''Warminster'' occurs first i ...
and tested a 23" model of a steamboat in a small stream on his friend Joseph Longstreth’s property, behind the current General Davis House on Street Road, on the western end of what is now Upper Southampton Township. The steamboat is memorialized on Upper Southampton Township's seal.
The railroad arrived in the 1870s and brought with it many changes. "Southamptonville" was shortened to Southampton, and farmers now had a faster and more efficient way to market their milk and produce. Tradesmen and craftsmen opened shops along Second Street Pike, and residents began commuting into Philadelphia.
Changes continued through the 20th Century. Electricity and telephone lines were installed, and Street Road has been widened (1969–1970) and a railroad overpass constructed, necessitating the removal and/or demolition of the toll house, several shops and residences.
Public education began in the mid-19th Century and one-room schoolhouses once stood at Street Road and Gravel Hill, and on County Line Road just west of Buck Road. Southamptonville's former one-room schoolhouse has been enlarged to such an extent that it is no longer recognizable as such, but stands in its original location on the south side of Street Road near the railroad overpass. The Original "Southampton High School" was later converted and expanded into Shelmire Elementary School (now First Children Academy) when the new Centennial School District's William Tennent High School was built in 1953.
The first public school in the village of Davisville, known as the Davisville Seminary, remains on its original site on the South Side of Street Road – next to the Dairy Queen. The Seminary was used in more recent times as an overflow classroom for the "stone school" (C.H.I. Institute).
Upper Southampton Township has embraced industry and development, but retains a certain small-town feeling despite rapid growth in the post-war years, and again in the 1980s and 1990s.
References
External links
Link to Local Schools
{{authority control
Unincorporated communities in Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Unincorporated communities in Pennsylvania